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Bob Dylan's Nobel Prize For Literature Is Likely To Boost His Bank Account

INDIO, CA - OCTOBER 15: Musician Paul McCartney performs during Desert Trip at the Empire Polo Field on October 15, 2016 in Indio, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images)

The inaugural Desert Trip Festival is in the books and the only question remaining is how quickly Desert Trip producer Goldenvoice and its parent, AEG, will confirm the next one.

The festival, held at the Empire Polo Grounds in Indio, CA, tried a new model. Instead of a full day of music with headliners at night, Desert Trip was all main course, no appetizers. Like Coachella, which takes place in the same location in the spring, the same line-up played over both weekends: Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones (Oct. 7 and 14), Neil Young and Paul McCartney (Oct. 8 and 15) and The Who and Roger Waters (Oct. 9 and 16).

The estimated attendance was 75,000 each weekend with an estimated gross of at least $130 million, according to Billboard, making it the highest-grossing festival ever. The talent budget was equally astronomical. When the event was still slated for one weekend, Billboard estimated that the three headliners would receive up to $10 million, with the "openers" getting at least $1 million. While it may not be correct to double their paydays for both weekends, sources told Billboard that four of the acts were receiving the highest fee of their career.

The average age of the acts on stage was 72, with the audience ranging from 20s on up, though the largest demographic was, understandably, baby boomers. The two weekends were met with great praise with fans already creating line-ups for future festivals.

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Best: The bill

When are you ever going to get to hear the three biggest acts from the British invasion —the Rolling Stones, The Who and former Beatle Paul McCartney on the same bill? Probably never. It felt like a once in a lifetime event in that way (or twice, since it was repeated two times). Add in Dylan, Waters and Young and it’s a Mt. Rushmore of rock.

Best: Neil Young

In an epic line-up of musical giants, Young turned in the freshest, most innovative set. He switched up his show from the first week (as did the Stones, the other artists played the same set), but it was more than that. Unlike The Stones and McCartney, who, great as they were, seemed to plan their set lists with no sense of pacing, Young’s set started with a hat trick of acoustically performing “After the Gold Rush,” “Heart Of Gold” and “Old Man” as the moonrise slowly started behind him and ended with a ferocious, no-holds-barred rock set with his backing band, Promise of the Real, that was so fierce it threatened to put a new part in your hair.

Worst: So few collaborations

Okay, so not really a worst, but why was there no more cross pollination between acts? Young joined McCartney both weekends for “A Day in the Life,” “Give Peace A Chance” and “Why Don’t We Do It In the Road,” but otherwise, there was no crossover. How fun would it have been to have Mick Jagger join Dylan for “Like A Rolling Stone” or have Pete Townshend join Waters on “Another Brick In The Wall?” It seemed like an easy way to make an already grand event even grander.

Worst: No women on the bill

Yes, this was a rock veterans weekend but it could have used a little estrogen courtesy of Heart, Pat Benatar, The Pretenders or Blondie, all of whom would have fit in perfectly with the classic rock bill.

Best: The production values

From the sound to the amazing visuals filling the massive screen behind the stage, the production was first rate in every way. Take what was already some of the best sound ever for rock shows and kick it up a notch for Waters, who used surround sound and visuals that turned his show into more of a multi-media, sense-surround experience than just a concert. It’s impossible to stress enough how great the sound was. Every word and note were audible.

Worst: The dust

By day three, despite watering down the field, the dust was kicking up. Smart attendees wore bandanas over their faces from the start, while the rest of us dealt with what has become known as Coachella Cough, a dry wheeze and cough from inhaling too much dust. Clearly, too much water turns the fields into mud and no one wants that, but a little more frequent sprinkling to tamp down the dust would work wonders.

Worst: The exit

Of course it’s difficult to get 75,000 people out of one location at a time, but there has to be a better way than shuttling people by bus to the fairgrounds, miles away from the actual event, to then dump them there to Uber and Taxi lines. We waited more than 90 minutes to get onto a shuttle bus after the first night’s show ended and then almost another hour in a taxi line. And while it’s the city’s rule, not Desert Trip’s, that the taxis charge a $25 fee before the meter even drops, somehow that needs to be posted in the taxi line. Now, $70 poorer, we understand why the taxi line was so much shorter than the Uber line. At Coachella, patrons can catch Ubers in a designated area on site. This switch added hours to the trip and was the ultimate buzz kill after a night of great music.

Best: The organization

Despite the above complaint about the exits, the rest of the festival run more smoothly than almost any festival I’ve ever attended. The layout allowed easy entry to parking (we wised up and drove ourselves after the first night’s lamentable egress), easily navigable pathways to the different sections, comfortable grandstand seating that flanked the floor since not everyone wants to be standing for hours, and a polite, pleasant informed crew that was efficient, friendly, and seldom overzealous.

Best And Worst: Cheap tickets

After monitoring site traffic after announcing the first weekend, Goldenvoice added a second weekend almost immediately— both went on sale at the same time. The second weekend, however, ended up with a tremendous surplus of tickets on the secondary market. For Goldenvoice, a sale is a sale and the resale at a much lower price (for example, my StubHub ticket, originally priced at $999 was $280 a few days before the second weekend) doesn’t impact Goldenvoice’s gross, but it’s not the best public relations move to have thousands of tickets at a quarter of the original price flooding the marketplace. Whether speculators figured demand would be so great that they would make a killing on tix or lots of folks initially bought and then their plans changed, we’ll never know why the massive dump of tix, but it may impact whether a second weekend happens if a second edition of Desert Trip happens next year.